A leading canine researcher, Stanley Coren PhD, has recently announced that dogs’ intelligence is on a par with that of a two year old human.

Coren has researched a wide variety of case studies and discovered that, whilst breed does make a difference to intelligence levels, ‘Their stunning flashes of brilliance and creativity are reminders that they may not be Einsteins but are sure closer to humans than we thought.’

According to Coren, there are three types of dog intelligence: instinctive, adaptive and working and obedience.

Instinctive intelligence focuses on what the dog has been bred to do – so innate behaviours such as scavenging for food -or in the domestic dog’s case, raiding the bin!

Adaptive intelligence refers to how well the dog learns to solve problems from its environment – our collie for example, has learnt how to turn the doorhandle to try to get into rooms we have closed off to her!

Working and Obedience intelligence is essentially ‘school learning’ – so training classes, shows, agility and so on.

He has also concluded that dogs can learn around 165 words and even count as well as dealing with spatial problems such as learning how to operate simple mechanisms or find the most effective route to where they want to be – i.e. a comfy chair or by the dinner bowl!

Quite incredible really!